poll evil

Quittor, fistulous withers, poll evil, thrush, shoulder slip - vets had been wrestling with them for hundreds of years using very much the same drugs and procedures as myself.

Poll evil is a traditional term for a painful condition in a horse or other equid, that starts as an inflamed bursa at the anterior end of the neck between vertebrae and the nuchal ligament, and swells until it presents as an acute swelling at the poll, on the top of the back of the animal's head.